DO you get what you pay for?

I need some research articles written for a company that some friends and I made. We are doing some innovative research in the education niche and want to publish some information that positions us as thought leaders in the space and addresses the ways that our competitors are doing things and how we're better.

We were looking at a number of different approaches, including hiring a freelance writer or researcher to start doing some directed research and creating literature surrounding our product and how it's different, or potentially doing it ourselves. We're a bit lacking in human resources in particular, as we're a new company, but we do have things like equity and a bit of cash that we can play with in order to make things happen.

Can anyone offer some advice on how to go about hiring someone to research and write a paper for us, how much we should be paying for that service based on the length of the piece or other factors and just some other things to look out for in the hiring process? We are looking on Freelancer right now to try and find someone but we have mostly done our own stuff in the past so we're not sure how to proceed.

Thanks in advance to everyone that replies here.